


A Targaryen Alone.

by Thisismecoping



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hallucinations, Madness, Mental Instability, Not Beta Read, One Shot, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 14:38:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19007830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thisismecoping/pseuds/Thisismecoping
Summary: A Targaryen alone is a terrible thing.Jon Snow's entire life was built on a lie. He killed the women he loved after watching her murder thousands of innocent people. His family exiled him to a frozen wasteland for no reason. It would be enough to break any man.AKA. Jon Snow goes a little crazy during his exile North of the wall.





	A Targaryen Alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta read so forgive any mistakes that I might have missed. 
> 
> I think this story has been done before a dozen times already, but I just had to get my version out there. Hopefully you like it and it makes sense. I don't rreally know what I'm doing.

 

It didn’t feel right. None of it did.

Jon listened to the men and women around him as they went along their business, setting up camp, tending to fires, gathering wood. The soft crunch of snow under their feet was an odd comfort. Maybe his only comfort anymore. He tore into the salted deer and chewed mechanically until the hard slab of meat softened in his mouth.

He watched the flames of his campfire, watched as the fiery tendrils danced and darted in and out of existence. The longer the looked the longer the flames seemed to linger, to wrap around each other making shapes and images. He looked away, not wanting to see what they showed.

Instead he found Tormund watching him again, he always seemed to be watching him, a worried glance here and there and an unasked question in his eyes.

He had thought he might have been able to find peace in the North but it still did not feel right.

~~~

“Be with me.”

Jon’s eyes snapped open. A chill seeped through his bones. He groaned then rolled onto his back and stared up at the canvas tent above him. He could still see her, still smell her, still feel the warm comforting weight of her in his arms. The sound of her voice was still soft in his ear as she told him of her plans for them. And then he had killed her.

“Fuck,” he groaned and gave up trying to fall back asleep. He sat up and reached for his cloak with a blood-covered hand. His heart nearly stopped, his blood went cold.

He clenched his jaw until his teeth hurt and pinched his eyes closed. _It wasn’t real, it wasn’t-_

When he opened his eyes his hand was clean, dry, marked by nothing more than old scars.

He left his tent and was met by a freezing wind, a dark sky, and hushed whispers. Just outside of camp Tormund was talking to someone, one of the Freefolk he did not recognize. A man who hadn’t been at the Wall when he first arrived. What did it matter Jon thought, he gave a quick glance south and saw the silhouette of a lone figure in the darkness, watching him.

He wasn’t sleeping well, he wasn’t eating enough, or at least that is what he told himself before he looked away and headed towards the campfire.

“Word from the South,” Tormund offered as he joined Jon by the fire.

Jon barely acknowledged him, instead he watched the fire.

“The Dornsh,” Tormund began, uncertainty in his voice.

Jon looked up at him, “Dornish,” he corrected. He had not expected news from that far south.

Tormund shrugged, “Dornish, seems they came to their senses, decided kneeling was not for them, broke away from your King Brother, invaded the Stormlands and the Reach.” Tormund reached for a skin and drank from it, “I think I might like these Dornish.”

Jon turned back to the fire and watched the flames dance. Bran had no armies, no bannerman to call on. The Stormlands were held by Gendry, he had been a good man, but he had no experience leading or ruling, he couldn’t even read or write. All he had was a name given to him by a Queen that was now hated by all. The Reach would fair no better, being led by a sellsword who the people had no loyalties too.

Dorne would take what they wanted and there would be little Bran could do to stop it. Because that’s what people did, that’s who people were, they would never change. There would be no mercy in the world. He shrugged. Was this what he had killed her for? So men could keep fighting and killing each other. He nodded at the fire as if some part of him already knew this would happen. That it had all been pointless.

“Word from Winterfell, too. Seems that coward that ran from the dead, Glover, is set to marry your sister. Or maybe it was his son.”

Jon flexed his sword hand, stretching the fingers before balling them into a tight fist. More games, more politics. He grunted. Sansa had won the North their independence, but they had simply traded enemies in the south for enemies within. After everything that had happened nothing had really changed.

~~~

The axe came down hard, sending splinters of wood scattering everywhere. Jon grunted and again hit the tree. He shifted his feet and swung the axe even harder.

What would his father think of him? This had been Ned Starks plan along, hadn’t it? To let him go North to be safe from the South. What would Ned Stark of the man who killed the women he loved, that had killed his on own kin? There had no honor in what he had done, but then again where had the honor been in the lie that was his life.

Jon nearly yelled through clenched teeth as the axe came down hard again.

_We find our true friends on the battlefield_. He could still hear Lord Stark's voice in his head, that had been a lie as well.

_The lone wolf dies and the pack survives._ Jon wanted to laugh, what would he think now with his children a thousand miles apart.

And what about his actual father. Rheagar Targaryen. Jon’s vision went blurry as he swung the axe again, then again. Why had Bran even told him. What good had it done. It had just torn them apart, sent her spiraling.

The tree cracked, sprinters springing up from the axe wound in its side. Again Jon swung and again, his grunts turning into anger fueled cries.

And now he was King. Brandon Stark first of his name, or whatever was left of him. Is that why he had told him? So he could--

Jon dropped the axe, his chest heaving and looked at the ruined tree in front of him before he turned around, keeping his head down and went back to camp. He couldn’t bring himself to look south.

~~~

A month, two? How long had they been traveling, he couldn’t remember. One foot in after another, one step then another. If he just kept moving maybe-- They had stopped getting messages from the South, stopped meeting travelers and traders. They had pushed too far North, moved too far away from the wall.

“I don’t know exactly what happened down in the south,” Tormund said, catching up to him. “But I don’t think running from it is gonna help.”

Jon stopped, looked down at the snow. He could feel the blood dripping from his hand, coating his skin, covering, him. Her blood. Her pain. His betrayal.

He knew it wasn’t real, the blood. It was just his grief, his guilt. Something in his head wasn’t right. How could he have expected less, after what he had done, what he had been through. He hadn’t been eating, he hadn’t been sleeping. But it was better this way.  Better that he always was reminded of what he had done. Better that he was as far away from the world as he could be. Fewer people to hurt that way.

He looked south, and there she was standing in at the treeline. Her silver blonde hair in a loose braid gently blowing in the northern breeze. Her skin pale, eyes dead. Her dress soaked in blood. She had always been there, waiting, watching, every time he looked south.

He turned back to look North. Running from it might not help, but what else could he do.

~~~

At first he thought it was a trick of his eyes, another lie of his guilt-ridden exhausted brain, but then the others saw it too. Nothing more than a split second of a shadow tracing along the forest floor, then the hint of him on the horizon.

They were being followed. He was being followed.

Half the Freefolk had left them by the next morning. He had heard there whispers, knew what they thought.

The dragon had come back to kill the man who had murdered his mother.

He did not blame them, they were probably right.

~~~

Winter was supposed to be over but it was colder now than he had ever remembered. He stared into the fire, barely feeling its heat, instead he watched the flames twist and turn and burn. If he stared long enough, sometimes he could forget, sometimes it would show him things, beautiful things, things he had lost, things he had never had, things he could never have.

He glanced back, away from the fire and towards the south. She was there, as she always was, lingering in the corner of his eyes. Watching him, judging him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t have a choice.”

He couldn’t smell the ash anymore, the burnt wood and stone. But he could still see the bodies, burnt corpses of children on the street, their skin peeling from their bones.

He closed his eyes wishing for the images to leave his mind.

She had killed thousands. She had lost her mind. He nodded to himself. That’s why he had been brought back. That’s why they hadn’t let him rest. They had brought him back to stop her, the Night King had not mattered, it was her. They had brought back to kill the women he loved. The Gods had decided to bring him back from the dead so he could kill the woman he loved because that’s what was what Gods did.

He wondered then if the Gods had brought someone back to life to stop Aegon the Conqueror or Meagor the Cruel. How many stories untold of the man resurrected to stop Aegon the Unworthy. How many times did the Gods try to stop the countless Essoi warlords he had read about in Maester Luwins' books? Maybe they had all failed where he had succeeded and that’s why he had never heard their stories.

He laughed, he couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop it.

He did have a choice, and he had made it. He had killed her. Why? So the world could be a better place. So his cousin would have to marry a man who she didn’t love to keep her power. So more wars could be fought. For all he knew Bran was dead and deposed. It wouldn't’ come as a surprise, he knew what people were, what they did, how they acted. How they would twist every good thing in the world until it was ugly and horrible and mad.

Jon leaned closer towards the fire, his jaw clenched tightly, his sword hand clasped tightly around Longclaws hilt. He rocked gently, anger was better than the alternative, he was tired of the alternative.

What had Bran been thinking when he allowed Sansa to leave the Seven Kingdoms, the fool was signing his own deathwish. And for what? So some new southern warlord to crown himself King, a new Harren the Black.

He shouldn’t have-- Jon twisted his body and shook his head.

“No, no,” he muttered.

No, it had to be done. She had her choice just as much as he did. She could have spared the children. She could have burned her enemies, their enemies. She should have burned them all, the people who worked against her, the ones that betrayed her. The ones that drove her to this. She should have burned them instead. If it could have saved her then he would have done it, he would have burned them all.

~~~

Jon dropped the ever lightning bag of dried meat beside his fire. The further they went north the harder hunting had become, fewer animals this far north, less life. It hardly mattered.

What had Sam told him that day in the crypt? That it should have been him on the throne.

Jon nodded softly to himself, watching the flames dance in front of him. He could see her in the corner of his eye, wearing that black dress, the snow around her feet soaked red.

That’s why he had told him, wasn’t it? That’s why Sansa had betrayed his trust, had broken her oath she swore in front of the heart tree. That’s why they had fought for him when he was imprisoned.

Because the realm would have been a better place with him on the throne. Yet when the time came where were they. Did Sam speak for him? Did Sansa? Did Davos? Did Tyrion?

He shook his head, he watched as the figure behind him stepped closer. No, they didn’t. They sent him away. They made him betray her and then they threw him away.

~~~

He did it for them.

The snow crunched softly underfoot as he kept up a relentless pace, he could hear the men and women behind him, there were only a few left, most scared off by the increased sightings of Drogon. Others worried they were going too far North.

He did it for them and what did he get. Sent to his frozen wasteland. They brought him back for what, to live his life in misery.

No. That couldn’t be it. He came back so Bran could be King, his Sansa Queen, and they could exile him back to the North just like they did when he was Ned Starks unwanted bastard boy.

He did it so Tyrion Lannister could be Hand. Tyrion Lannister, the man whose terrible advice had led to all of this. The man who had sent him North to catch a fucking wight. This was his fault as much as anyones. She should have burned him instead. Why hadn't she burned them?

He could have forgiven that. He could have loved her then. Then they could have changed everything. They could have reshaped the world. Instead he had left it as bad as it ever had been. Because he had been too weak to act, to speak. He should have helped her. They should have burned them. And because he didn’t they threw him away like the bastard they always thought he was.

~~~

_She was as beautiful as she had ever been_ Jon thought to himself as he stared blankly south. She was close enough to touch, if he could only reach out. But he couldn’t, he didn’t deserve her.

Her skin was pale, but that only made her eyes glow even warmer, even the blood didn’t detract from her beauty. He was hers and she was his. They had been meant to be together, they were supposed to have been together.

“I should be with you,” he whispered. She didn’t respond or react, she never did. Why hadn’t Greyworm killed him? Why hadn’t her blood riders hunted him down and avenged her, that was their way wasn’t it, the Dothraki would rather die than let their Khal's death go unavenged. Yet they never came for him, where had they gone? 

Why hadn’t Drogon burned him? That would have been a good way to die. Dragonfire, then maybe he would at least feel anything but this cold. Instead he lived, he always lived, no matter how many times he tried to die he always lived.

He rotated the blade in his hand, castle-forged steel, sharp, strong. The flame or his fire danced in the reflection of the blade. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, instead he lifted the blade up to offer it to her, but he knew she wouldn’t do it either, she was dead and he was losing his mind.

“I don’t know what to do.” he whispered, and for the first time since he had killed her she looked at him.

~~~

There was only a handful of them left, Tormund, himself, two other men and a women.

He didn’t know why or how the fight started, but it didn’t really matter. It was same here as it was everywhere. The two men had killed each other, or at least tried. One was dead, the other bleeding out from a wound in his gut.

He looked at the dying man, at Tormund who was trying to stop the bleeding, then at the crying women. This was what people were, in the North, in the South, in Essos, everywhere. People were small and weak and stupid and would kill each other every chance they got.

“We should burn them,” Jon spoke.

Tormund turned to him, his eyes wide as if it had been the first words Jon had spoken in weeks.

Had it been that long Jon thought to himself.

Tormund turned back to the now dead man, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

_We should burn them all._

~~~

“We can’t,” Tormund shook his head grimly, “Nobody been this far North, it's past the treeline.”  He pointed North into the vast ocean of barren tundra, “one storm and we’re dead. There’s nothing out there but death.”

Jon shook his head, barely hearing his old friend, he barely spoke anymore, Tormund was the last of them, no one else followed him, he couldn’t even feel Ghost, just the cold. But he couldn’t turn back, a part of him knew why couldn’t stop, he was being chased, not by Drogon, not by her, by something worse, something in his blood and if he looked back he was lost. If it caught him--

There were worse things than death. Death was good, death was final. He couldn’t hurt any more people if he was dead, he couldn’t--

He couldn’t stop himself from glancing back at her, her eyes trained on him, a small smile on her blood-stained lips. Dead might be better. 

“Go then,” Jon said. He heard Tormund mutter a frustrated swear before he left.

~~~

He watched her from the corner of her eye, his only companion, unmoving and silent. The only one that hadn’t abandoned him. A constant reminder of what they made him do. It hadn't been her fault, it was in their blood.

The trees had given away to featureless tundra, and soon that had given way to something else. Strange shapes of dark ice jetting from the ground. The air felt weird, cold and brittle. The sun never rose here but the sky itself glowed with streaks of green and blue that danced amongst the stars. He didn’t know when was the last time he had ate or drank or rested. It was perpetual darkness here, lit only by the strange glow in the sky.

He could hear things moving around him, small, inhuman things. More tricks of his eyes he figured. He was the same as her, the same broken blood coursed through their veins. Maybe he had never came back right, maybe had never come back at all and this was one of the seven hells, meant to torment him.

Maybe that was the truth of it.  Jon fell to one knee, his body finally giving up. He was tired of running from it. Maybe this time he could find her in the darkness that awaited him, she could stab him a thousand times over for his crime, for doubting her, he abandoning her, for leaving her alone, just like they had left him alone.

He fell to his side, and propped himself up against one of the strange ice shards jetting from the ground. This was a good place as any to die. He bit down the anger he could feel rising inside him, that hatred he had been growing ever since he had come to the wall, that refusal to quit. It would be better this way, he couldn't hurt anyone this way. 

A gust of wind battered him, then the ground shook and cracked. A growl reverberated through his chest but he could not bring himself to open his eyes. Closer it moved towards him and the earth trembled.

Then he felt the tender touch of a hand against his cheek, of fingers dragging down his throat and up around his neck, tangling in his hair. A familiar impossible touch that left him feeling warm for the first time since he had made that mistake in Kings Landing.

Tears sprung to his eyes as he was swallowed by the sorrow of everything he had lost--

Her fingers dug into his scalp, her touch so warm against him, she felt so close, so real.

Not lost. Taken. They had taken everything from him. His love, his family, his home, his birthright, his throne. He had held back for so long, the anger, the rage. They would take that fire from him too. 

If he could take it back he would, if he could make it right he would. If he could punish all those who had that wronged her, had wronged him he would. He would burn the world for her, from Winterfell to Kings Landing, from Bravos to Asshai. He would do it for her, with fire and blood.

“Together,” she whispered.

He opened his eyes and found Drogon staring back at him. He would burn them all.


End file.
